Relating
by sorcerousfang
Summary: Her husband rarely found himself entrenched in the emotional aspects of his work, but some cases did not allow him to form walls.


**Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin is not owned by me, else this would have happened in the manga.**

**Spoiler alert just in case someone hasn't read the manga following the end of the Shishio case.**

* * *

It was a relatively normal occurrence, albeit rare, that Tokio traveled to see her husband. Government work always kept him flitting around from place to place, and though he did his best to keep her and their child (now _children_, she reminded herself) from becoming involved, there were times when their desire to be with each other overcame his fears of putting them in danger. She had wanted to see Tokyo again anyway, and make sure her husband was keeping himself out of too much trouble. The aftermath of his last long assignment had been the worst she'd seen him.

Rumor had it that some kind of battle had taken place last night on the other side of town, though, and she had been gnawing her lower lip all morning wondering how involved he might have been.

When her husband dropped in early in the afternoon, she knew immediately that something was amiss, and not simply because of the odd timing. His entire body seemed to sag with whatever weight sat on his shoulders, and his eyes reflected a heavy day. Her gaze traveled to the darkened side of his uniform.

"You're wounded again."

"It's been taken care of."

She approached him, gently placing a hand over the torn fabric, checking for herself. She could feel the bindings beneath it and sighed in relief. Looking up, Tokio caught his gaze, prepared to give him the same speech from before when she had walked into the hospital that day to find him wounded from head to toe, but stopped short at the look he returned.

Something was haunting him today, drawing distance to his gaze as though he were seeing something not there.

"…What's wrong, dear?" she questioned in a non-intrusive tone, delicately moving her hand from his wound to the side of his face. Her touch seemed to draw him back, and he covered her hand with his own, looking her over for a long moment. His frown seemed to deepen in response to some thought he had, and then suddenly he drew her into a crushing embrace.

"Hajime?"

This was more than his simple affections. He trembled slightly with either the force or reasoning behind it, alerting her that something had happened. He did not speak for a long time, burying his face into the space between her neck and shoulder, and she did not ask for further explanation. She simply returned the embrace, one hand trailing up and down his back in soothing motions, and waited.

Finally; "I pray none of my enemies see fit to break me through you."

Her husband was not one to get himself tangled in the emotions of the people he dealt with. If anything, he avoided it with disturbing grace, something the amount of death he had dealt with as part of the Shinsengumi likely had a hand in. For him to respond like this to something meant it involved someone close to him in one way or another, and he was relating deeply.

To break him through her…the person involved must have lost someone dear to them.

"Would that destroy my wolf?"

An honest question. It did not seem possible to imagine him lost.

"It would."

An honest answer.

"Then I pray, should the worst happen, someone sees fit to piece you back together."

"They would find that a difficult task," he said. His arms tightened around her, not wanting to imagine it, not wanting to hear that.

"My dear Hajime…"

He took a very long, deep breath, calming himself, and slowly relaxed his grip. When he returned her to arm's length, his hands remained on her shoulders. From the look in his eyes, he was not quite yet past whatever images his mind was conjuring up, but their interaction had seemed to help. She offered him a gentle smile, reassuring, before stretching up for a kiss.

"I must return," he informed her as they parted.

"Do be careful," she reminded him, eyes traveling back down to his side. He gave her a wry smile.

She wondered suddenly of the man he was relating to.

"…Do you intend to piece him back together?" she asked as he turned to leave.

"…I doubt I'm the one who can."

* * *

**There were many things that could have happened after Kaoru's 'death' that didn't, and because we didn't get to see Saitou doing anything in the immediate aftermath of the discovery of her body, my mind decided this was perfectly fine to cover.**

**Note on child/children – my research indicated that during the series, Saitou's first son would be two years of age, and the second one doesn't come along for another year. With the implied adoption of Eiji, she now has **_**children**_**. Correct me if I'm wrong.**


End file.
